Adventures in blogging and in Japan

Hello All,

I have blogged once or twice before, but having an ongoing blog is going to be a new adventure! Please bear with me as I learn how to blog.

Mark, Ruby and I have been a real family here together for over a week now, it is utter bliss.

Upon arriving in Japan, Ruby and I found one another near the luggage conveyer belt, she was wiggling around in her kennel and panting ferociously.  After an hour of fishing my luggage from the belt and filling out pet quarantine forms, we were on our way. I was pulling one large cart with Ruby’s kennel on it, and pushing another full of luggage… doing my best to avoid a gigantic crowd of giddy teenage girls all in pink. A Japanese security guard felt bad for me and grabbed one of the carts. After two customs checkpoints we finally saw Mark! In all of the excitement I lost my passport. Luckily it was turned in and is currently sitting with the Japanese Police in Tokyo, after some paperwork it will be mailed to me and all will be right in the world.

I have received many questions about Ruby, she is living on base with some good friends. This is not the ideal situation but Ruby has to remain on base per her quarantine and we currently live off base in a little (or considered large in Japan) house.  Ruby is happy and healthy, she has 2 cats to stalk all day and is walked multiple times a day, but she still gives us shameful sad eyes when we leave her.

Over the past week I have earned my Japanese driver’s license and started to drive my new vehicle which I have named Zip. Zip is not a fast accelerating vehicle, but upon pushing the gas petal an automatic “c’mon Zip” seems to come out of my mouth. Adapting to the left side of the road is not as hard as I imagined. I was really intimidated but Mark made me jump right in, now I am zipping around town like nobody’s business.

As far as living here I love the food and culture, but living off base is hard. We have no oven, I do not know how to work the washer (Mark told me not to try), we cannot both park our cars at our house, we can only throw away certain trash items on certain days of the month which means nothing gets thrown away, but we are both thankful to at least have a house at the moment.

Mark and I have been staying busy getting everyday life squared away. We made a big shopping trip last week and Mark decided to purchase an octopus, also known as tako. Not a live Octopus, but the kind you eat! Then he made tako poke, a Hawaiian dish. Mark LOVES tako poke, least to say I prefer real tacos. Taco Tuesday was instituted once again this week.

Our refrigerator went out last week, right after we went grocery shopping. Mark banged and kicked the fridge, I made phone calls and we got a new refrigerator…  2 young men, apparently from the base fire station delivered the new refrigerator. After wrestling it into the house we found that unfortunately this large American refrigerator does not fit into our small Japanese kitchen, so it now resides in the entry way proclaiming itself “FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY.” No one has contacted us about a new refrigerator, so I am not sure if we will get it switched before we move on base.

Here is one small observation to leave you with; the gates to the base are guarded by Japanese Security. They scan your ID card every time you come on base. When Mark is driving they say “konnichiwa” and “arigato” when I am driving they say “hello” and “thank you.” This makes me giggle every time.

That is all from the other side of the earth,

Much Love,

Jessica, Mark and Ruby

PS: Skype phone is up you can call us directly, text is working (only texts, no picture texts), email works best for us. If you don’t have any of these numbers please email me.